The IPPR in collaboration with the International Budget Partnership (IBP) conducted the 2017 Open Budget Survey
for which Namibia received a score of
50, beating the global average of 42. The
survey used 109 equally weighted indicators to measure budget transparency.
The indicators assessed whether government availed eight key budget documents to the public online in a timely
manner and whether these documents
presented budget information in a comprehensive and useful way.
In terms of transparency, the survey report noted that since 2015 Namibia had
increased the availability of budget information by publishing the Mid-Year
Review online. There has however been
a decrease in the availability of budget
information because the Citizen’s Budget was not published online in a timely
manner. Government also failed to produce an Audit Report and a Pre-Budget
Statement. It further found that In-Year
reports only contained scant budget information that lacked detailed information on critical topics such as expenditure by classification, or revenue by
category or source.
Namibia scored zero for public participation because government provided
the public with no opportunities to engage in budget processes. The global
average score was twelve. For budget
oversight, the country scored 33, which
was classified as weak. They found that
the Legislature provided weak oversight
during the budget planning and implementation stages of the budget cycle.
MISA’s annual Transparency Assessment, and the IPPR’s Access Denied
report, reconfirmed the lack of access
to information, which should be in the
public domain.

84

So This is Democracy? 2017

The Transparency Assessment assessed
eight public institutions’ accessibility
and responsiveness to the public’s demand for information. Of the eight institutions surveyed, only six had fully functional websites. Although all institutions
had designated officials for information
dissemination, the majority of institutions had a delayed response.

Renowned for its
high degree of
media freedom and
equally lauded for the
explicit guarantee of
media freedom and
freedom of expression
enshrined in Chapter
3 of the Constitution,
Namibia’s downfall is
the absence of a similar
constitutional provision
of access to information.
Access Denied assessed the response of
100 public institutions, private companies, and civil society organisations to information request letters. However, only
20% of all requests were responded to.

Select target paragraph3